


Wound Patterns

by zacharybosch



Series: Bootblacking [3]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Bootblacking, Cuba, Dom/sub, Hand Jobs, Leather Kink, M/M, Post-Season/Series 03, Service Kink, Smoking, a nice house with strategically placed balconies, but less so than before, cigarillos (like way too many), dunno if it's light or undertones or what but it's there in some capacity, hannibal and will generally being idiots with their feelings, not 100 per cent sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2017-10-07
Packaged: 2019-01-10 05:34:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12292374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zacharybosch/pseuds/zacharybosch
Summary: Silence between them as Hannibal leant in, struck the match in one smooth motion, and held the flame to the cigarillo tip. Silence as Will took a long drag until the cherry was burning bright. Silence when Hannibal remained afterwards, standing impassive against the railing, watching Will watching him.---Third and final part in my bootblacking series, now with added smoking kink.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> WHEW i've been sitting on a shitty, partially-finished draft of this for like 6 months because the words just would. not. flow. then i wrote about 3000 of the damn things yesterday and another 1000 today. what is writing.
> 
> big shout out to beyoncé and rihanna for providing my writing soundtrack. slightly smaller shout out to every single cigarette i smoked as a teenager and the pretty-boy rockstars i was trying to emulate

Will acclimated to the Cuban weather remarkably well. The endless procession of hot, sultry days harked back to his childhood, skipping along the coast from Louisiana to Alabama, and he found himself possessed of some of the wildness of his youth. His skin turned from sallow to creamy to honey-burned rich, and he shed the weight of years like dead hair. His white linen shirts offered generously unbuttoned collars, and the cigarillos he’d smoked as a teenager while skulking in French Quarter doorways found their way back into his pocket.

Smoking had been an affectation when he was young, an attempt to make some kind of superficial connection with the kind of oddball clique that might accept him. At the back of the football field, or the swampy patch behind the running track; goth girls with their clove cigarettes, stoner boys with their sticky green joints, and Will with his cigarillos. It worked to some degree, and the first time he’d had sex had been in the back seat of a car that was filled with heavy, twisting smoke. 

It was a more refined affair these days, but the smell remained the same now as it was then, and one breath took him back to cutting class and the first flush of burgeoning desire. Typically after dinner, Will would walk outside onto the balcony overlooking their small courtyard, bare feet on sun-warmed stone tiles. He would sit back in the ridiculous wicker peacock chair that Hannibal had placed out there, light up, and let himself go.

Some weeks or months since installing themselves in Havana, on a day that was marked only by how ordinary it had been in every other way, Will sat on the balcony and placed a cigarillo between his lips, reaching for his lighter and finding himself stopped by a hand on his arm.

Hannibal appeared before him with a small box of matches and an unreadable expression. “Allow me.”

Silence between them as Hannibal leant in, struck the match in one smooth motion, and held the flame to the cigarillo tip. Silence as Will took a long drag until the cherry was burning bright. Silence when Hannibal remained afterwards, standing impassive against the railing, watching Will watching him.

Will had a fairly sure idea of what Hannibal was angling for, although he hadn’t expected him to come at it from this angle. It wasn’t anything Will had indulged in much in the past, but he could see the appeal of it now that Hannibal had chosen this way to ask for it. He had thought, more often than he would admit but not so much that he was ashamed, of the things they had done in Baltimore. Evidently Hannibal had been thinking of them too, and why wouldn’t he? It had always been Will who talked himself out of taking it further. Hannibal would’ve done so much more, had Will just said the word. 

Instead of saying any of this out loud, Will simply said, “I thought you didn’t like the smell?”

Hannibal gave one of his infuriatingly tiny smiles. “I’ve found myself becoming accustomed to it.”

***

Hannibal came out onto the balcony after dinner to light Will’s cigarillos every day for the next two weeks. Will began to associate the sound of a match being struck with the amber of Hannibal’s eyes, and the fall of his hair as he leaned in. Hannibal made his own associations; the touch of the match to the paper was the dark sweep of Will’s eyelashes as he looked down, coy; the rip and crackle of the striking match was Will’s breath, the quick intake and controlled exhale. The smouldering cherry of the cigarillo was Will’s lips, tension and release.

Sometimes he lingered, leaning against the wrought iron railing, just watching Will smoke. Other times he would light and leave, retiring to his bedroom or study for the remainder of the evening. It was not lost on Will that Hannibal’s rooms were in the west wing of the house, offering good views of the balcony from behind sheer twitching curtains.

It was strange, the things about Will that Hannibal seemed to be entranced by. It didn’t map to anything Will knew about the way he thought Hannibal worked. Then again, maybe Hannibal himself didn’t entirely understand or anticipate any new aspect of his desire for Will until he was confronted with the reality of it. Hannibal had said himself that he could never entirely predict Will, and perhaps that extended to predicting the things in Will that he was drawn to.

To be fair, the bootblacking had been a fairly linear train of thought to follow, once Will tried to approach it from Hannibal’s perspective. It wasn’t the filthy boots that Hannibal loved, but rather the careful skill required to restore them back to beauty; the grace needed to consciously lower yourself, to serve with elegance and restraint and messy abandon if it was asked for, the willing submission to someone who deserved it and understood what it meant.

It was this new development that left Will casting his mind back over years and miles. He’d seen no evidence to ever indicate that Hannibal had a goddamn _smoking_ kink, and plenty to the contrary. One of the first things he had ever known about Hannibal was that he took extremely good care of his body, letting in nothing that wouldn’t nourish it. Smoking served no purpose but to let in disease.

No, he could tell that this was a new development. Will had a knack for pushing Hannibal to recklessness in a number of peculiar ways. Before, it was girls on stag heads and bloody hearts in Sicilian chapels. Now it was cigarillos and smoke, almost amusing in its banality.

***

Will had a pair of boots that he’d purchased on a flight of fancy soon after they came to Havana, passing by a dingy little second-hand store and seeing them sitting in the window. They might’ve been black once, had they not been more scuff than boot, but the Cuban heels were quite charming and Will was trying to throw himself into this new life with as much vigour as he could manage. He had no fixed idea in his mind of what he would actually do with the boots, but to have them in his possession felt something like a comfort.

But wearing the boots out and about would feel too much like admitting something, so he’d shoved them under his bed as soon as he got home. If Hannibal noticed, he said nothing, and Will had been thankful for it.

The boots came back to the forefront of Will’s mind now as he ruminated on the fact that he and Hannibal hadn’t touched yet, not properly. Will didn’t count the sterile, clinical press of Hannibal’s fingers as he checked Will’s stab wounds for infection, nor did he count the stumbling fumble of his own hands wrapping bandages around Hannibal’s torso.

This was not to say that they moved uncomfortably with each other. The ghost of their actions in Baltimore hung between them, and it was difficult for Will to be entirely cold towards Hannibal when he had intimate knowledge of the heat of his mouth and the shape of his neck. But the casual, questionably appropriate intimacy they had shared before had been worn down to a faint shadow, and by this point it had been so many years since Will had touched anyone in any kind of intimate capacity that he wasn’t entirely sure he remembered how to do it.

Which was a lie. He _had_ experienced intimate touch in the intervening years. But as with most things in Will’s life that had gone wrong even after a sincere effort on his part, he’d attempted to strike it from his memory in shame and humiliation.

Molly had tried very hard with him. God knows she’d put up with more shit from Will than any woman should, night after night of stalled and stuttered intimacy, flames of desire snuffing themselves out again and again as Will tied himself in knots over what he _wanted_ versus what he _should_ versus what he _could._ She’d tried to invite his touch, gamely told him she was up for trying anything at least once, but it wasn’t the same. Where Hannibal had bent to his desires as naturally as a flower to the sun, Molly had only looked back with confused eyes and a gentle smile, and he tried with all his heart not to hold it against her. She did what she could, and it wasn’t her fault that it wasn’t enough.

So he had experienced touch, since Hannibal. But not the kind of touch that he could feel crawling beneath his skin now, making his nerves spark and his fingers twitch.

They hadn’t kissed, either. Not ever. There was something vaguely shocking about it, the knowledge that Hannibal had had Will’s cock in his mouth, but never his tongue. It wasn’t an entirely unpleasant shock. There had been some close calls, wet panting on a neck or shoulder blade, but never the consummation of a kiss. At the time, it had seemed terribly important to Will that he maintain such a line of defense; thinking back on it now, he felt nothing but a faint embarrassment at his futile self-denial.

He thought about kissing Hannibal now. The idea wasn’t immediately repellant, but it also wasn’t the most electrifying thought he’d had recently. He knew Hannibal was hungry for it, saw clearly the flick of his eyes to Will’s mouth when he put a cigarillo to his lips, the unconscious echo when Hannibal pulled his own bottom lip between his teeth.

A thought that did interest him very much was that Will could choose to continue not kissing Hannibal, not out of some misplaced sense of righteousness, but out of a desire to toy with him and make him earn it. Whether or not Hannibal _could_ ever earn it was something Will would decide upon at his leisure, but to make a game of it now felt good. 

That was the kind of touch Will was after. Take the broken bones of what happened in Baltimore and soften their jagged edges. 

That evening, when Hannibal came out onto the balcony to serve Will his after-dinner smoke, he put the cigarillo between his own lips to light.

It was a brash move, really, something Will might have chastised him for were he anyone else, if this were a negotiated scene with a clear beginning and end. _Don’t put your mouth on the master’s property. Sloppy manners, you know better than that._ As it was, with no framework between them delineating where exactly this all started and stopped, Will let it slide. He could sum up their entire relationship that way if he wanted to. Letting it slide and letting it slide until one or the other was backed into a corner made of all the things they’d _let slide._

Hannibal held the cigarillo delicately in his mouth, touched the lit match to the tip and sucked until it was smouldering. It was a play for Will’s attention, of course, and it was more effective than Will wanted to admit.

This could be it, then. The new way they navigated this space with each other. Teasing move and countermove, with all the taut desire of years ago and none of the pain that went with it. Hannibal was evidently eager to play the game with him.

Will took the cigarillo from Hannibal’s offered fingers, felt the dampness of Hannibal’s mouth on the wrapper, and eyed him thoughtfully as he settled back in the chair. “You’ve become accustomed to the smoke then?” 

Hannibal inclined his head, but said nothing. 

“How accustomed, do you reckon? Would you take it into your mouth? Beyond what’s necessary to get it lit, I mean.” Will drew on the cigarillo and let smoke billow around him. “Would you hold it in there?”

“Not of my own volition.”

“What if I blew it in there?”

A look that Will hadn’t seen before flitted across Hannibal’s face and was gone again. “I wouldn’t stop you.”

“Come here.” Hannibal was already standing close by. Will parted his legs so Hannibal could draw closer still. “Don’t blow it out until I say.”

Will beckoned with two fingers until Hannibal’s face was a scant few inches from his own. He drew unhurriedly on the cigarillo, tendrils of smoke escaping from his damp lips as he pulled it away.

A gentle grip with his smoking hand on Hannibal’s jaw, and a prompting tap against his lower lip. Hannibal opened, and Will blew in smoke. To his credit, Hannibal didn’t flinch, or fight down a cough. He stayed just as he was, hands gripping the arms of the chair, nose almost brushing Will’s, half-lidded eyes roaming from mouth to neck to fingers.

“Blow.”

***

Dinner had been tense. Not in a bad way, but in the days since Will had decided to start indulging himself a little more fully, expectation had slowly filled the house. Having a conversation over a meal felt like wading through honey, every step a slow and agonizing pull until all they could do was sit and stare and smoulder. 

Will knew that it could go on like this indefinitely. Hannibal with his ridiculous iron focus could endure it for as long as it needed to be endured until Will came to him, mad with frustration, desire at breaking point, ready to shove a boot in his face and grind him beneath his heel. Hannibal would enjoy it, the long hold-off and eventual surrender, would privately count it a victory as he made the barest token effort to keep the smugness off his face.

But they hadn’t done it on Hannibal’s terms before, and Will had no intention of doing it on Hannibal’s terms now. He may want the slow agony of days, but Will wouldn’t give it.

Will gathered up their empty plates and took them through to the kitchen, then went to his room to pull on the cuban heel boots. The click of the heels across the tiled floor as he re-entered the dining room was deafening with its implication. It was Will’s game they were playing and he had decided to reassert his control.

Will felt the first frisson of anticipation as he stopped at the head of the table, looked past Hannibal to the open balcony doors and said, “Go and get your kit. I know you have one stashed here somewhere.”

Hannibal appeared on the balcony several minutes later with a small wooden cantilever case, dark with age but no less fine for it. Will eyed him from his position in the peacock chair as he began laying out his tools, idly wondering if the wicker he was sitting on would even survive under the strain it was about to be subjected to. 

If the strain would even come. He still hadn’t decided exactly how he wanted the evening to play out. Sex was definitely back on the cards, but since he’d made refraining from kissing a conscious decision instead of an incidental one, it had heightened his awareness of every move Hannibal made around him to an almost unbearably delicious degree. He’d always got a kick out of being withholding, and the force of Hannibal’s attention just made it better. 

Will drew his attention back to where Hannibal knelt in front of him, and realised belatedly that he’d dressed for the occasion.

Since coming to Cuba Hannibal had been quite lax with his clothing, spending his days in loose linens and fine cottons, but tonight he had some suggestion of his former formality. Dark tapering trousers, creamy white shirt, and braces snapped into place to hold it together. No jacket or tie, a concession to the balmy evening, but he looked more put together than he had in a long time. For a second it all faded away, the balcony, the wicker chair, the constant background drone of insects, and Will was back in Baltimore. Blood-red walls, blood behind his eyes, blood pouring over his boots and blood, blood, blood.

“Will?” Hannibal asked, voice breaking through Will’s reverie and grounding him firmly back in reality. Where Baltimore had been red, Will’s mental note of Cuba was verdant, lush green, and he let the heat of it come back up to engulf him.

“I’m fine. Carry on.”

Hannibal held his gaze for a few more seconds, then bent back to his case of tools. Will didn’t ask when or how he’d put this kit together, if it had always been lying in wait in this house or if he accrued it piece by piece in secret when Will was otherwise occupied.

When all was laid out as it should be, Hannibal stood and pulled Will’s cigarillo case from his own back pocket. He had purchased the case for Will unprompted, a sleek thing of tan-colour leather, and Will had not thanked him.

He withdrew a cigarillo silently, placed it between his lips to light it, drew on it once, and let a thick cloud of smoke billow from his mouth. Then he leant down and placed it in Will’s mouth. 

Hannibal knelt once again. It was time to begin.

It felt good for Will to settle his foot against Hannibal’s shoulder. It was entirely the wrong decision from a practical standpoint, Hannibal’s thigh being the sensible option, but pushing his foot against Hannibal’s shoulder was what got them into this mess in the first place. Besides, Hannibal had indicated on several occasions that he was more than happy to contort himself around Will and his whims. He would deal with this, like he had everything else.

The scratching sound of soapy brush against boot echoed through the courtyard, lifting dust and grime from every hard-worn crack in the leather. The boots were in such a state that not even Hannibal would be able to completely restore them, but he would do a damn fine job as far as he was able. The cracks would be soft, at least, and less inclined to crack further.

Will shifted about in his seat and said, “Ash.”

Hannibal immediately stilled his brush and took up the small silver-coloured dish from the end table by Will’s right arm. Will was capable of using his arm just fine, and most of the time he did make the necessary small movement to position his cigarillo over the dish and ash it, but at this moment he found himself entirely disinclined to do anything at all. This was a particular indulgence that he had allowed himself only once or twice when Hannibal had stayed to watch him smoke, but Hannibal knew what to do well enough.

Elbow propped up on the arm of the chair, Will held the cigarillo between two curled fingers, hovering lazily somewhere around his shoulder, thumb balanced delicately on the end. A sharp flick of his thumb was all that was required, Will not even bothering to look where the ash fell and knowing that Hannibal would move the dish to catch it. 

He could move as much or as little as he wanted and Hannibal would scramble to right the world around him. It was a nice feeling. He could tap empty fingers on the arm of his chair and Hannibal would place a fresh cigarillo between them, unquestioning.

When both boots were thoroughly cleaned, Hannibal set to wiping them down with a cloth. The first time they’d done this, Hannibal had taken the shirt off Will’s back to complete the task, a cocky act of posturing that Will had let happen anyway. He couldn’t decide if he was disappointed or not that Hannibal didn’t try it again now.

“You’re going to do this for me regularly. Every week.”

“As you say.”

“Even if the boots aren’t dirty, you’ll come out here and and perform the service for me anyway.” Will took a deep drag on his cigarillo and knocked his boot against Hannibal’s hands, prompting him to look up. “Why will you do it?”

“Because you ask me to,” Hannibal said, not missing a beat.

“It’ll become boring though. Servicing the same clean boots every week. You’ll find a way to keep me interested.”

Hannibal took up his tin of polish. If the underlying meaning of Will’s words affected him, he didn’t let it show. “And you’ll find a way to keep me interested, I’ve no doubt.”

Will let the silence fall back over them. If he was being truthful with himself, he was setting up scenarios he wasn’t entirely sure he could follow through on. The urge to let all this pageantry drop and to just be soft and easy was strong. Perhaps they could have space for that too, if Hannibal even wanted it. The thought of asking disturbed Will far more than anything else he’d ever asked Hannibal.

But for now, this was good. The methodical press of fingers against leather and the curl of smoke to settle against skin. They had time enough later to figure out exactly where their sharp edges could fit comfortably together.

As was expected of him, Hannibal had done a remarkable job on the boots. They would never look new again, but he got them within an inch of it. Will lifted his foot to better see Hannibal’s work, and Hannibal smoothly slid his hands around to cup Will’s sole and ankle, taking the weight.

An idea struck Will then, and he acted before he could think better of it.

His cigarillo burned low, almost finished. He took a final luxuriant drag, then summarily stubbed it out on the newly polished leather that Hannibal still cradled in his hands. He sat back in the chair, and said with more confidence than he felt: “You made a mess.” 

It wasn’t as bad it looked, Will having flicked most of the smouldering cherry away with a crafty finger, but it left a nice ashy smear all over Hannibal’s hard labour. “Clean it.”

He had brushes, and he had cloths, but Hannibal did exactly what he’d done the last time Will offered the toe of his boot and told Hannibal to do something with it. He put his hands to the floor and his mouth to Will’s boot and he licked it, ash and all.

When Will had demanded this before, it had had malice and grit and filthy, shameful desire behind it. Now he demanded for the simple thrill of it, the enjoyment of giving a vague order and being obeyed in a way that delighted him. The same wound patterns from their years-ago engagements, worked over with a more loving touch.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter wasn't meant to exist, but i'm always disappointed when i can't squeeze a sexy bit in somewhere, so i just decided to write a bonus fuck chapter. it ended up being less sexy than i intended

Will rose early that morning, far earlier than he ever normally did. The first streaks of sunlight had only just begun to bleed into their small courtyard, the air still light and cool against his skin as he walked out onto his bedroom balcony. He could see straight across to Hannibal’s matching balcony, shutters still closed against the encroaching light.

It had been exactly one year since they came to Cuba. Their life had settled into a steady rhythm, the slow cycle of days marked by the casual escalation and careful curtailment of physical, mental, emotional intimacy. There were still some wounds they encountered, some boundaries they hadn’t crossed. Will hadn’t particularly been waiting for any such marker or anniversary before he crossed them, but now that one was upon them, he decided it was as good a time as any.

There had always been a certain symbiosis between them, whether it was to mutual benefit or destruction, and perhaps that is what led Hannibal to Will’s bedroom in the early hours. He was all soft edges and slow movements in low-riding pyjama pants and a thin cotton robe, hanging loose at his shoulders. Will was entirely naked. 

If this had been any other time, Hannibal might have let his gaze sweep over Will cool and brief, tamping down any spark of lust in the interest of pacing out their slow, prowling game. As it was, he stopped at the balcony doors, and looked his fill.

There were plenty of things in Will’s life that he felt an inordinate amount of shame about, but his nakedness wasn’t one of them. He propped his hands against the iron railing and stood, quiet and open, challenging Hannibal to make something of it.

Hannibal made of it what he knew. He came forward and drew Will’s cigarillo case from the pocket of his robe.

Will didn’t generally smoke in the morning, or in any place other than the dining room balcony. It was a ritual, with a designated time and place and attendant; the star around which the rest of their actions orbited. But perhaps it could work here, a little more casual, a little softer.

Hannibal held the cigarillo between his lips and stepped in close to Will as he struck the match and put flame to tobacco. He drew it from his mouth with one hand while the other came to rest on the iron railing by Will’s hip, and for a moment he just stared at the planes of Will’s body, cataloguing the sight of grey smoke rolling against gold skin.

Will leant forward a fraction of an inch, and Hannibal slid the cigarillo into his mouth.

The stone tile of the balcony held a chill, and it would be hard and unforgiving on his knees, but Hannibal knelt anyway. His view of Will was condensed down to the slight pouch of his stomach, shadowy carved hip bones, soft cock hanging heavy with the first faint swell of interest, muscular thighs dusted with dark hair, and one trailing hand dancing smoke through the air.

Hannibal had been in this same position some scant weeks ago. He’d done something that got Will’s hackles up, or maybe he’d been doing it all along and Will only just realised, but either way Will had taken Hannibal’s head in his hands and pushed his face into his crotch, grinding denim against skin in a not altogether pleasant way.

_This is what you wanted, isn’t it?_ Will had said. It wasn’t how things were supposed to go. Hannibal had tried to force his hand, thought he could take and take and decide exactly what he got out of it.

_No, this isn’t it. I’m sorry._ It had been a lesson taken almost too much to heart; Hannibal’s next act of service felt false in its grovelling quality, and Will had never wanted a slave in Hannibal. Communication was still an issue, but they were improving by slow degrees.

While the pattern of what Will and Hannibal did now was the same as it was then, the experience itself was wholly different. No lesson to be taught, no punishment to be meted out. Hannibal dragged the warm, dry skin of his lips over Will’s body, not to kiss but to explore, to pick up scent. The purpose of this exercise could be pleasure, if Will could manage it.

He had always been entirely selfish with his pleasure, before. If he touched Hannibal, it was only to get himself off, and he expressly did not want to see the evidence of Hannibal’s arousal spilling uncontrolled and hot over his hands. Brusque, brutal, and as quick an exit as he could manage afterwards. It had been an arbitrarily self-imposed rule like all the others, but now it afforded Will the chance to put it right.

He pulled Hannibal up from where he knelt on the tile. With very slow, very deliberate movements, he stubbed out the cigarillo on the railing and flicked the butt away, then brought his smoke-scented hand down to rub firmly over the hard line of Hannibal’s cock. Now that he was finally touching it, it felt impossible that this was the first time, that he had been so relentlessly cruel up until now.

Hannibal dropped his head against Will’s shoulder as Will continued to stroke him. He wanted to turn his mouth up and kiss Will. It was obvious, by the flickering lips and damp breaths he left against Will’s collarbone, but he wouldn’t kiss him until Will said the word. Hannibal would endure as long as he had to.

The iron railing was digging uncomfortably into Will’s back, but he couldn’t bring himself to move when Hannibal shook so sweetly against him. They were skin on skin now, finally, searingly, after so many years and so much blood between them. Will rolled his hips forward to meet Hannibal’s own unthinking thrusts, the hot, hard slide of flesh against solid flesh. He took them both in hand as he pressed his own face down into Hannibal’s neck, and he felt so angry that it had taken him this long to deliver them both to this point. He felt sick with it, the traumas they visited upon each other that would’ve been avoided if he could’ve just been the kind of man that Hannibal thought he was.

He wanted to be that man so much it made him shake.

Will wound his hand into Hannibal’s hair and gripped him closer still, let his own cock slip to the side as he stroked Hannibal faster, pre-cum dripping over trembling fingers. If they could shut the world out forever, stay just here doing exactly this, Will would be happy.

Hannibal came with a stuttering, shaky moan against Will’s neck, teeth grazing the flesh as he rode out the aftershocks. Will left his hand between them, unwilling to let go of Hannibal’s cock now that he’d finally got his hands on it. He continued to stroke, slow and soft and so wet, until even that light touch was too much and Hannibal flinched at the discomfort. But he didn’t pull away, and for once, neither did Will.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yell at me on [tumblr](http://zacharybosch.tumblr.com)!! please!!!!


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